[ BY ALBERT PANG ] The clash between Microsoft Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp. reached a climax recently with the release of their latest Web browsers (Netscape's Navigator 3.0 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0), but the real fight could lie behind the companies' robust product slogans.
Both companies are expected to build additional features into future versions of their browsers, allowing them to perform many tasks beyond cruising the Internet.
In fact, both companies are building platform strategies. "A platform today has to have free Internet access, free HTML support, and free Java support. I don't really care about the browser business; what I care about is the platform business," says John Ludwig, Microsoft's vice president of Internet tools and platform division.

With more than 800 employees, Microsoft's Internet division is busily developing IE 4.0, which will incorporate many features of Windows and allow users to seamlessly integrate and browse information on hard disks, LANs and the Internet. The beta version of IE 4.0 will be released by the end of the year.
In Mountain View, Calif., Netscape is also hard at work developing its next-generation Navigator, code-named Galileo. Bob Lisbonne, Netscape's vice president of client product marketing, said the new product will be geared toward the collaborative computing market with an Internet spin.
Acquiring technologies from Collabra and others, Netscape is putting productivity tools such as e-mail into Galileo. Also called NetTop, Galileo is expected to be out by the end of the year. "We are going to deliver a whole new class of browsers," says Lisbonne.
Features of IE 3.0 and Netscape are compared point by point in carefully prepared white papers from the two companies.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft and Netscape are battling for the upper hand in Internet cruising. In addition, the two are squabbling over the size of their installed bases and the ways in which they are using their strategic partners to enhance their positions.
Brad Silverberg, senior vice president of Microsoft's Internet, estimates IE's installed base at between 5 and 8 million users.
Lisbonne disputes that figure, claiming that while Microsoft might have shipped that many copies of IE, the actual usage is far . "[Microsoft is] confusing shipments with usage," he says.
According to Netscape and industry analysts, Navigator's installed base has reached about 40 million users. But despite its smaller base, Microsoft is expecting more than 2000 Internet service providers to help distribute IE 3.0, including big names such as AT&T, MCI, Netcom, and America Online.
Lisbonne says Netscape has secured an equally large base of partners, including OEMs such as Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and Silicon Graphics Inc., which has distributed Navigator effectively in the past. Many ISPs are offering their customers the choice between Navigator or IE.
Industry analysts seem to agree that, despite its late start, Microsoft's market share will expand rapidly in the browser market.
"Microsoft is going to get its share in the Internet market," says Ira Machefsky, an analyst with Giga Information Group. Machefsky says he believes IE has the potential to equal Navigator's share. "They're now locked in a death grip," he says.

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